LUMC Curium - Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, Post Box 15, 2300 AA, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry & Psychosocial Care, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Adm Policy Ment Health. 2023 Sep;50(5):824-833. doi: 10.1007/s10488-023-01283-w. Epub 2023 Jun 19.
The involvement of youth peer workers (YPSWs) in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) stimulates hope, destigmatization, and more culturally and developmentally appropriate support. Nevertheless, the collaboration between YPSWs and non-peer colleagues remains challenging, as it requires services to embed a new type of expert into practice. To stimulate the involvement of YPSWs in practice, this study reports on 27 semi-structured interviews with YPSWs and non-peer colleagues to provide insight into the barriers and facilitators in the collaboration process. The study took place in the Netherlands. A total of 10 interviews with YPSWs, and 17 interviews with non-peer colleagues in different healthcare occupations in CAMHS were conducted. Overall, the participants perceived relatively more barriers compared to facilitators in the collaboration process. Barriers to operate efficiently with YPSWs in multidisciplinary teams included: condescending attitudes and professional stigma towards YPSWs; concerns for YPSW boundaries; bureaucratic and clinical language usage by non-peer colleagues; conflicts due to different sets of expertise; and, lack of role clarity and guidelines for YPSWs. To improve the partnership between YPSWs and non-peer colleagues, participants described the importance of supervision and monitoring of YPSW activities. Moreover, participants also stressed the need for clear guidelines, and introduction and evaluation sessions to facilitate the collaboration process. While YPSWs seem to be an asset to CAMHS, there are a number of barriers to overcome. To overcome these barriers, organizational commitment, supervision (especially from peer colleagues), flexibility by non-peer colleagues, training non-peer staff to support YPSWs, and consistent evaluation of the implementation of YPSWs in services is recommended.
青年同伴工作者（YPSWs）参与儿童和青少年心理健康服务（CAMHS）可以激发希望、减少污名化，并提供更符合文化和发展需求的支持。然而，YPSWs 与非同伴同事之间的合作仍然具有挑战性，因为这需要服务机构将一种新型专家嵌入到实践中。为了促进 YPSWs 参与实践，本研究报告了对 27 名 YPSWs 和非同伴同事的半结构化访谈，以深入了解合作过程中的障碍和促进因素。该研究在荷兰进行。共进行了 10 次与 YPSWs 的访谈，以及在 CAMHS 中不同医疗保健职业的 17 次与非同伴同事的访谈。总的来说，参与者在合作过程中感知到的障碍相对多于促进因素。在多学科团队中与 YPSWs 有效合作的障碍包括：对 YPSWs 的居高临下的态度和职业污名；对 YPSW 边界的担忧；非同伴同事使用官僚主义和临床语言；由于不同的专业知识而产生的冲突；以及 YPSWs 角色不明确和缺乏指导方针。为了改善 YPSWs 和非同伴同事之间的伙伴关系，参与者描述了监督和监测 YPSW 活动的重要性。此外，参与者还强调需要明确的指导方针和介绍和评估会议，以促进合作过程。虽然 YPSWs 似乎是 CAMHS 的一项资产，但仍有许多障碍需要克服。为了克服这些障碍，建议机构承诺、YPSWs 的监督（特别是来自同伴同事）、非同伴同事的灵活性、培训非同伴工作人员以支持 YPSWs 以及对 YPSWs 在服务中的实施进行一致的评估。
